Circular economy Achieving more with less: The German Resource Efficiency Programme (ProgRess)
The fundamental goal of the German Resource Efficiency Programme is to make the extraction and use of natural resources more sustainable. Economic growth should be decoupled as far as possible from the use of resources and related environmental impacts should be reduced.
The focus is also on strengthening the German economy’s resilience and competitiveness and thus on promoting stable employment and social cohesion. Voluntary measures and incentives play an important role here. The Programme outlines measures to increase resource efficiency along the value chain and in each update takes account of current challenges. Thus ProgRess III is the first to address the role played by resource efficiency in achieving the climate targets and to consider the potential and risks for resource efficiency that come with digitalisation.
Extensive consultation processes are fundamental to the ProgRess updates. Representatives of social groups, associations and the Länder have the opportunity to comment on the draft programme and make contributions of their own. Extensive public participation is especially important for broad-scale acceptance. The citizens’ dialogue for ProgRess III took place in May 2019 at three public workshops with a total of 250 randomly selected participants. Afterwards, anyone interested had the opportunity to participate in an online dialogue regardless of their location. The results of the workshops and online dialogue were included as citizens’ recommendations in the Annex to ProgRess III.
Right to repair
Reparability enables consumers to decide for themselves how long the products that they own should remain in use. It also conserves resources and supports the development of a circular economy at the local level. Between March 2022 and March 2023, the European Commission presented two proposals for legislation relating to this topic: the proposal for common rules promoting the repair of goods as a draft for a Right to Repair Directive (in force since 30 July 2024), and the draft of the new Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (in force since 18 July 2024).
Sustainable consumption and consumer protection
Between March 2022 and March 2023, the European Commission also presented the following proposals for legislation to strengthen consumer communication and transparency in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: the proposal for a Directive as regards empowering consumers for the green transition through better protection against unfair practices and better information (Empowering Consumers (EmpCo), in force since 26 March 2024), and the proposal for a Directive on substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims (Green Claims Directive, still the subject of negotiations).
As at: 17.06.2025